Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/495

Rh their minds, to abandon mythology and therewith theology (which is a further development of mythology). Consequently modern philosophy since Kant has been predominantly philosophy of history and philosophy of religion; the modern man has begun to consider the course of his own development cognitively and critically. Kant provides the epistemological basis of the antitheological enlightenment, and his successors devote themselves to the analysis of mythology and theology. This, from the standpoint of universal history, is the significance of the closer study of myths initiated by Vico, and continued by Hume, Comte, Feuerbach, Spencer, and our immediate contemporaries. The theologians endeavour to maintain theology against the onslaughts of philosophy; philosophers incline to forget the profound mental labours undertaken by modern theologians to defend their doctrines and methods against philosophy, they tend to ignore the literature of apologetics.

I must again refer the reader to §§ 41 and 41. Our aim here is to deduce the consequences to Russian thought of the facts and ideas detailed in those sections.

The Russians failed to accept Kant because they were and still are more inclined towards mythology than the Europeans. Under European influence, Russians could be induced to negate myth, to negate theology, but they could not be induced to criticise myth and theology. Russian thought is negative, but not critical; Russian philosophy is negation without criticism.

This explains why Russian negation remains believing negation. The educated Russian abandons the faith of his childhood, but promptly accepts another faith—he believes in Feuerbach, in Vogt, in Darwin, in materialism and atheism. We have seen how Bělinskii, Herzen, and their successors struggled to escape from scepticism to faith. In the case of all these writers I have had occasion to insist upon their lack of criticism. I showed, for example, how Lavrov declined from Kant to Bruno Bauer.

Extremely characteristic is the unbridged transition from the old faith to the new. The mental development of Bělinskii offers a classical example. We see in him what negation is without criticism, without epistemological criticism.

This longing for faith as an escape from scepticism is no mere search for a religious belief. Other things will do in